The Natural History of Selborne

Missel-thrushes congregate & are very wild.  Thistle-down floats.  Thompson, who makes this appearance a circumstance attendant on his summer evening,

“Wide o’er the thistly lawn, as swells the breeze,/A whitening shower of vegetable down/Amusive floats…”

seems to have misapplyed it as to the season: since thistles which do not blow ’til the summer-solstice, cannot shed their down ’til autumn.